Lee Fang: Will Democrats Ever Recover From 2024?

Independent journalist Lee Fang discusses why the Democrats lost so badly and whether or not the party has the ability to course correct anytime soon.

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Lee Fang: Will Democrats Ever Recover From 2024?

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Donald Trump won the presidential election decisively, taking every single battleground state, and as we discussed last week with Patrick Ruffini, winning over new voters across all sorts of racial, age, and gender demographics. He's, once again, remade the electoral map, with Republicans capturing the Senate and the House.

What should Democrats learn from this loss? Lee Fang is an independent journalist and political commentator who runs a Substack at leefang.com. One of his most recent posts comments on the complete lack of self-reflection coming from many of the highly paid Democratic consultants who seem to have whiffed so badly with the Harris campaign messaging.

Sources Referenced:

• 2024 Presidential General Election Results
• 2024 Senate General Election Results
• 2024 House General Election Results
• Lee Fang: Democratic Consultants Lash Out at Voters as Racist and Sexist
• OpenSecrets: 2024 Presidential Race Funding
• Financial Times: The Left Is Losing its Grip on Ethnic Minority Voters
• The New York Times: Early Results Show a Red Shift Across the U.S.
• Bernie Sanders' Open Letter to Democrats
• The New York Times: California Election Results 2024
• California State Ballot Measure Results
• San Francisco Election Results

Chapters:

• 00:00 Coming up…
• 00:27 Intro Theme
• 00:53 Subscribe to the new channel
• 02:41 What should Democrats learn from this loss?
• 03:18 Democratic consultants lash out at voters as racist and sexist
• 06:34 White progressives vs. pretty much everyone else?
• 10:06 Party insiders are burying their heads in the sand
• 12:28 Will a reckoning come?
• 19:36 What issues on the left are most ripe for rethinking?
• 21:16 Border security
• 25:40 Bernie Sanders' postelection criticism of the Democrats
• 30:00 Jared Polis Democrats?
• 33:28 Elon Musk's Republicanism
• 36:04 The MeToo Culture and rightwing young men
• 50:07 Even California is shifting red
• 01:06:41 Is there any Democrat out there who you're bullish on?
• 01:09:33 This could all backfire on the GOP
• 01:13:43 Is censorship behind us?
• 01:17:19 What's one question that you think more people should be asking?

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Idaho-Bob]

Independent journalist Lee Fang discusses why the Democrats lost so badly and whether or not the party has the ability to course correct anytime soon.

The same thing was speculated about the GOP when Biden got 81M votes. It only took 4 years for the Right to trounce the Marxists. This shit always swings.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

10M dem votes inexplicably disappearing despite the same Hitler helped as well.

[A Thinking Mind]

You're going to have to adjust your observation to the actual numbers. By the time votes are finished counting, she's going to have around 74 million votes, maybe a bit more, so it's more like 6-7 million missing votes instead of 10 million.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

OK, so ~9% fewer vs ~14% fewer. Not quite as bad...but still pretty bad.

[Social Justice is neither]

The important thing is where. Doesn't really matter how many votes California manufactures if the swing state mills are closed.

[Michael Ejercito]

It starts with a total repudiation of the Russiagate propaganda campaign.

[Marshal]

Ever is a long time.

[A Thinking Mind]

The answer is, of course, yes.

On one side you had a historically bad, vapid candidate anointed without the vetting process of a primary. She was shackled to this administration under which there was rampant inflation, overseas conflict, and was on the wrong side of the most significant concern for voters (border security). She still earned basically 49% of the vote nationally, and was within 2% of winning in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Democrats are one candidate away from a complete reversal. They have insane capture through their control of media, popular personalities, and institutions. It would be extraordinary if a Democratic presidential candidate ever got less than 48% of the national vote, but absolutely typical for a Republican to end up with 48% of the popular vote.

If the next four years are a cavalcade of Trump disasters, Republicans are going to be facing a significant struggle.

It doesn't mean the Democratic isn't going to shoot itself in the foot, or that Trump isn't going to have a series of successes that lock in a temporary GOP supermajority, but those outcomes are far from guaranteed.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

The democrat media machine must be destroyed. I would prosecute them for serial FEC, FCC, and ultimately RICO violations for their endless undeclared DNC campaign speech masquerading as ‘news’.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

What a stupid question. Of course they will.

I recall Turd Blossoms “permanent Republican majority” after the Bushpigs swept the 2004 elections. By 2008 the Dems had taken back the White House and both chambers of Congress.

[Chumby]

Your precious Dick Cheney backing Kamala after Biden and Hillary had backed Bush’s march into Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Can’t wait to dox you for your pedophilia Pluggo.

[Kyol]

I've been seeing variations of this question raised since I started paying attention to politics around 1992.

In 1992, it was: "Is the GOP finished?" (Bill Clinton got elected)
In 1994, it was "Is the Democratic Party Finished?" (Republicans took control of Congress). Two years later Clinton got reelected, the GOP lost some ground, and people STFU about the Democratic party being doomed until 2004, when they were doomed again.
In 2008, it was the Republican's turn to be doomed once again.
In 2016, it was the Democracts who were finished as party.
In 2020, the Republicans were doomed.
Now it's 2024, and the Democrats might be doomed.

As soon as one Party effectively gains control over the government, they quickly demonstrate to the public that they actually have no fucking idea how to run the country competently, lose popularity, and give the other party a chance to make a comeback.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

All that is in my new book.

[Chumby]

Molesting for Dummies by MAPluggo

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

Oh and we are due for a recession soon. Haven’t had one since 2020. We will see how voters respond to proto-fascism and a for real shitty economy.

Dems take the House in two years. Bank it, Peanuts.

[Sandra (formerly OBL)]

Is this the best talking point your "White Dudes for Harris" chapter came up with?!

Sure, we just suffered the most humiliating loss in US history for the 2nd time in 8 years. But in 2 years we'll retake the lower chamber of Congress!

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

Why do you hate us in the Gridlock Party? All we want is no new legislation.

You people in the But it will be Different this Time Party never get anything right.

[damikesc]

If Trump just fires scores of bureaucrats, things are already improved dramatically. Deport a bunch of illegals --- even better.

Improvement really does not take much outside of a desire to do it.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

If that is all he does we will be fine.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Gridlock? You’re party of the Marxist /NAMBLA party.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

If government changes the definition again will you say we aren't in one again?

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

No, they won't recover. At worst, they'll get a sliver of hope during the midterms, maybe win a slim majority in the House, but 2030 will be their end:
1. President Trump made history last week. MAGA is now mainstream and he is more popular than ever. The Powers That Be threw everything and the kitchen sink against him... to no avail. They tried to impeach him, imprison him, bankrupt him, break him, disqualify him, assassinate him and yet... he persevered. Not only that, but the heir apparent of MAGA is here too and he is smart, young and he speaks the language of the people (unlike those deranged, corrupt, elitist swamplings). The sanefolk will support him, just as they supported President Trump.
2. The Party is projected to lose 13 House seats and electoral votes in 2030, so the next reapportionment will cement all of MAGA's gains and more. All thanks to The Party's horrendous dictatorship in California, which drives people away by the hundreds of thousands on the regular. And no, they won't keep voting blue, at least not all of them, and certainly not nearly enough of them. This year we have also seen how Texas is firmly red, and will stay red for the foreseeable future.
3. There were multiple instances of actual election fortifications on MAGA's part and I'm fairly certain that they have many more ideas to make sure that federal elections are becoming more and more legitimate. The more secure they become, the less votes The Party will "get". This year, some 10 million votes from 2020 simply disappeared. Strange, eh?
4. The Party and its vile creatures are unable to comprehend the causes of their defeat. And it's not just about them lying to the audience, I'm sure that they really are clueless. All throughout history a similar pattern had always emerged: the elites, the oligarchs, past a certain point simply lose all their connections to the realities of the average person. The more power they lose, the more deranged they become.
5. Not only that, but such defeats are usually sudden and exponential in their intensity. Usually, it culminates in a revolt or rebellion of some sort. In our case, we can clearly see how the legacy media died overnight after their colossal defeat. The Right suddenly became chic, suddenly became the dominant cultural force in our country. MAGA built an enormous coalition of diverse (sic) supporters, and it will only grow larger.
6. MAGA defeated The Party, but MAGA also defeated the RINOs. Ideally, The Party will fracture and will fade into obscurity in our lifetime. Ideally, in a few decades the two main parties will be MAGA and LP (as in, actual libertarians, not the libertine leftoid progressivos).

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

6. Yes, that’s what I’ve been seeking for a long time now. The democrat party has absolutely no right to exist, but there should be at least one viable, non treasonous alternative to the Republicans. Otherwise the republicans become last and dictatorial themselves. A party based at least in large part on libertarianism is a good alternative.

[Rick James]

Whoa... whoa.. Lee Fang? You had to light the chemjeff signal, didn't you?

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Good. For Fatfuck, the election was like dragging his blubbery carcass through a football field full of razor wire. And each day here since is like his fat naked ass rolling around in a pile of salt, rubbing alcohol and lemon juice.

So let’s keep him on the hook and push him as much as possible.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

What? I have never heard of this Lee Fang person before today.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

If the clueless post-mortem rhetoric from the left over the past 8 days is any indication then, no...they show no signs of being on track to learn anything. But I don't think that matters. What matters is what lessons (if any) are learned by the Dem donor class. At a minimum, they have to be extremely pissed off about how that > $1 billion was pissed away by the campaign on idiotic crap like bought-and-paid-for celebrity endorsements that accomplished fuck-all (and in fact might well have done more harm than good)...not to mention all of the other poor decisions that were made.

[damikesc]

That they are STILL flipping out over trans BS is a sign that things will not get better until they get worse.

Allowing young college-educated idiots to run things is a horrendous idea. Just pat them on the head and tell them to go off and fuck themselves.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

One of the biggest signs of their general separation from reality is the cries of "racism" and "misogyny" to explain Harris' loss. For example, Starr County in TX is the single most Latino county in the U.S., with Latinos making up 97% of that county's population. It has been reliably blue for many years, with Barack Obama carrying the county by just over 70 points in 2008 & 2012, and Hillary Clinton winning it by about 60 points in 2016. But 4 years later, Biden's victory margin there had slipped to only 5 points. And yet we're supposed to believe that the explanation for Harris losing the same county that a black man and a woman had previously won by huge margins must be...racism and/or misogyny.

[Uncle Jay]

"Will Democrats Ever Recover From 2024?"

They won't if they don't stop their slobbering love affair with socialism.

[NoVaNick]

If dems were just about socialist economics they would have won. Both Trump and Kamala promised to be Santa Claus. It’s all the annoying culture and identify stuff that the dems can’t separate themselves from which doomed them.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Amd they act like a bunch of screaming cunts all the time. Plus the endlessly finger wagging and lecturing. Always from the worst people in the world.

[NoVaNick]

Stop being the party of whine moms and tranny kids for starters.

[Turkey River Rat]

Not to be confused with wine moms which are just fine.

[Commenter_XY]

Just finished listening on YT. Pro Tip for YT viewers. Go to settings, playback speed, then select 1.25x. The 67 mins shrinks down to a more manageable 40 mins or so.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

That ought be a good strategy for dealing with the democrats. Reducing them by about 25% will make them more manageable.

[MWAocdoc]

The majority keeps swinging back and forth. That's why we call the undecided 10% in every election "swing voters." Yes, it really is that simple. What would be a much more interesting discussion would be to estimate the number of eligible voters who did not cast a vote in the election (for one or more races of interest or at all) and find out whether the reason for that is: 1) not interested in politics - i.e. nothing would get them to vote since they don't care who wins or can't be bothered to care; or 2) no one was running for that office (or for any office) whom they would want in office - i.e. "none of the above" but might vote if the two-party system were to be replaced by a proportional representation system.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

“Will Democrats Ever Recover From 2024?”

Let’s hope not. In fact, we should be actively destroying them while they’re crippled.

[TJJ2000]

Will Democrats ever support the US Constitution?
Their very F’En Oath of Office in holding political positions?
Instead of being Al’Capone criminals voting for every Gang-THEFT they can support?

Whether they recover from a ‘democratic’ loss only holds importance around the basis of their support for a USA … instead of their typical [Na]tional So[zi]alist Empire “conquer and consume” the USA/wealth/wealthy plans.

[Roberta]

They've survived for literally centuries, recovering even from the civil war, so why wouldn't they in the future?

[It's only a paper moon, Nominalists]

IN 3 ways they will never recover
1) The Great Unifier referring to millions of Americans as floating trash on the heels of Chubby Hillary calling as many 'deplorables'-- Everybody hates the "I am better than you" person.

2) There goes the "I'm with the poor and downtrodden" bullshit.
$500 000 of hard-earned donations to Al Sharpton, money to Oprah,a BILLION blown with utter contempt for working supporters.

3) Morality won't be associated with Democrats for ages. Abortion, Gay issues, Gender Change -- but who cares is you can't feed your children.

So many fools in the world, so many